It has been know to use strobe units to provide pulses of visible light, as indicators of an alarm condition, in fire alarm systems and the like. One such strobe has been disclosed in Ha et al. U.S. patent application entitled “Processor Based Strobe with Feedback” application Ser. No. 10/444,227 filed May 23, 2003 and assigned to the Assignee hereof. The disclosure and figures of the '227 application are hereby incorporated herein by reference. U.S. Pat. No. 6,522,261 B2 entitled “Selectable Candela Strobe Unit” which issued Feb. 18, 2003 is assigned to the assignee hereof and is incorporated herein by reference. The '261 patent discloses strobes having variable candela output levels.
Such units, as noted above, while useful require electrical energy to operate. Where numerous strobes are present in an alarm system current demands by such strobes which are often coupled to relatively long power supply lines can cause losses, generate heat, and require supplemental power supplies.
There is thus a continuing need to address strobe unit current demands. It would be desirable to do so transparently from an installer's perspective for different light output settings.